Page W20 Who’s Who in West Virginia Business 2006 November 3, 2006

KEITH PAULEYMATRIC ● South Charleston

BETH GORCZYCA RYAN / The State Journal

Since taking over the helm of the Mid-Atlantic Technology and Research Innovation Center in 2004, Keith Pauley has seen the non-profi t research and development corpora-tion grow from one employee to more than 50. The center also has received more than $7 million in research contracts. The research is done in labs like this one at the South Charleston Research Park.

Pauley, MATRIC Work to Improve W.Va.By BETH GORCZYCA RYAN

bethg@statejournal.comSOUTH CHARLESTON – It doesn’t

require rocket science to fi gure out West Virginia’s economy could be much better than it is.

But it is taking a rocket scientist to help shift the economy and create jobs.

In April 2004, Keith Pauley took over the helm of a fl edgling non-profi t research and development corpora-tion that was trying to capitalize on the Kanawha Valley’s history as a chemi-cal and technology research center to develop new projects and jobs. The cor-poration was called MATRIC, an acro-nym for the Mid-Atlantic Technology and Research Innovation Center.

Pauley thought the center may just work. It was designed using the same blueprint as North Carolina’s Research Triangle. The valley also had a wealth of retired and downsized scientists whose knowledge, experiences and rep-utation for inventing things from anti-freeze to aspirin had changed people’s lives.

Now just two and a half years later, Pauley and the center he came home to lead appear to be making a difference — one job at a time.

“I was MATRIC’s fi rst employee. I had a little offi ce in (Charleston’s old Business and Industrial Develop-ment Corporation’s) building on Smith Street,” Pauley recalled. “It was just me. Now we have more than 50 em-ployees — 20 of whom have PhDs — and $7 million in contracts for research.”

MATRIC also no longer just focuses on the Kanawha Valley. It has offi ces in Morgantown, Fairmont and Hunting-ton and is under contract to do private research and development for a num-ber of different companies from around the world.

The growth and success of MATRIC is why Pauley is being recognized as one of the Who’s Who in West Virginia Business for 2006.

“In a short period of time they have built a statewide organization with a physical presence throughout the state’s geographic area. It has retained many graduate level scientists and en-gineers who without MATRIC may

have left the state for other opportuni-ties,” said Bill Goode, president and CEO of the Charleston Area Alliance, which replaced BIDCO. Goode was one of two people who nominated Pauley for the Who’s Who recognition.

Goode said a lot of MATRIC’s success relates to the people Pauley has been able to attract and hire on at the cen-ter.

Those people include Parvez Wadia, MATRIC’s vice president and chief technology offi cer, who has a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech-nology, and had a 30-year-career at Union Carbide and Dow Chemical; and Jane Copley, MATRIC’s chief fi -nancial offi cer.

Goode said prior to joining MAT-RIC, Copley worked for 30 years with the non-profit educational research entity, AEL Inc, which is now Ed-vantia. Goode said MATRIC’s vice president for engineering, Mark De-hlin, worked for DSD Laboratoriesas a software reuse engineer and the West Virginia High Technology Consortium Foundation. The cen-ter’s vice president for chemical tech-nologies, Duane Dombek, worked for Union Carbide for more than 25 years and has 10 patents.

“I feel very blessed,” said Pauley. “I get to work with some of the most amaz-ing people — people who are considered top-notch in their fi elds in the world.”

Pauley is right there with them. A native of St. Albans, Pauley moved to Oregon ten days after graduating from St. Albans High School in 1983. He attended Oregon State University, where he received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nuclear engineer-ing. Earlier this year, the university’s Department of Engineering awarded him the “Oregon Stater Award for Out-standing Early Career.”

Following graduation, he worked for a time at Battelle Memorial Institute’s Pacifi c Northwest National Labora-tory. Battelle is the nation’s largest non-profi t research organization. Much of the group’s research focuses on energy, defense and environmental science.

CONTINUED ON PAGE W21

November 3, 2006 Who’s Who in West Virginia Business 2006 Page W21

Much of Pauley’s work while there fo-cused on the United States’ space-based missile defense plan, also known as the STAR WARS program.

“It was a very real program,” he said. “I think it would have worked had we done it. But it was a huge question of ex-pense.”

Pauley left Battelle in 1997 to take a job with a prime contractor for the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There, he was responsible for a half a billion-dollar program that redesigned the cockpit of the space shuttle.

“The shuttles still had 1975 computer systems in them. Well there is a big dif-ference between a 1975 computer and a computer now,” Pauley said.

While working in Houston, Pauley got to work closely with astronauts who would depend on those computer sys-tems to take them into space and bring them home again.

“I knew all of the astronauts by name,” he said. “We would have them over to the house for dinner.”

Pauley, his wife Amy and their four children moved back to West Virginia in 2002 after he landed a job with Titan Corp., a company that does work with NASA’s Independent Verifi cation and Validation Center in Fairmont. The IV&V Center researches, tests and vali-dates software NASA uses in its shut-tles, rockets and space vehicles.

Two years after moving back to West Virginia, Pauley landed the job with MATRIC.

MATRIC does research in three areas — chemical and environmental technol-ogy, health and life sciences and advanced engineering. Instead of just barely fi lling one small offi ce in the BIDCO building, MATRIC now fi lls much of the second

fl oor of building 701 in the South Charles-ton Technology Park.

“We have 12 labs now,” Pauley said as he sat in his offi ce overlooking Inter-state 64 and South Charleston with the Capitol City in the background. “And it’s all grown in 30 months.”

A lot of the center’s growth is related to research contracts they’ve won.

Researchers at the center went to Aus-tralia in May to help a pharmaceutical company redesign one of its manufac-turing plants. An explosion occurred at the plant, and the company wanted to update its design, install safer technol-

ogies and make things more effi cient. By August, the plant was up and run-ning safer than ever, Pauley said.

Researchers also went to Pittsburgh to help a chemical company upgrade and redesign a chemical process that hadn’t been updated since the 1960s. They also worked locally with Charles-ton Area Medical Center to develop a “SmartCard” — which is like a credit card that contains a patient’s medical information and partial history.

“That’s something that can help fi rst-responders in an emergency,” Pau-ley said. ‘They can swipe the card and

know what the person’s blood type is,who their insurance carrier is.”

MATRIC researchers and scientistsalso work with NASA and the IV&VCenter. They’ve worked with the U.S.Army and U.S. Navy to develop un-manned air vehicles, too.

He said one of the reasons why MAT-RIC has been able to land so manyunique and exciting contracts is be-cause the reputation the region hasglobally for scientifi c research and de-velopment. At one point in time, theKanawha valley had more PhDs percapita than anywhere else in the coun-try. The hard work of those scientistsestablished the reputation MATRIC isnow using and building on.

Not long ago, MATRIC wanted to hire aman who recently received his PhD. Theman is originally from India and hadjob offers from companies back home inIndia, as well as companies in England,France, Australia and the United States.

“We were the only U.S. job offer heconsidered,” Pauley said. “And in theend, he selected us. That proves it trulyis a global market for talent. And hepicked us because of the kind of workwe do and the level of research we areinvolved in. And that’s the point wehave to remember — MATRIC is onlygoing to be able to grow based on ourability to attract the best.”

And so far, they are doing it. Fromwooing old scientists and engineersback from retirement to attracting thebrightest young stars in the industry,MATRIC and Pauley change the stateand create jobs.

And for Pauley, that is a dream cometrue.

“I am the seventh generation in WestVirginia,” he said. My ancestors havebeen here since the 1700s,” he said.“This is where we belong.”

Photo courtesy of Keith Pauley

Keith Pauley sits in the cockpit of the space shuttle. Several years before taking over the helm of MATRIC, Pauley worked for a NASA contractor at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. While in that position, he was responsible for redesigning the shuttle’s cockpit.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE W20